


end this chapter

by brookwrites



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2018!Phan, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 17:59:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17085041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookwrites/pseuds/brookwrites
Summary: it’s been years since dan and phil planned the changes they’re about to make, and they’ve been preparing for them since they got home from tour. dan’s more than ready, but when it comes time to announce it, phil has some doubts. is it really time to end this chapter?





	end this chapter

**Author's Note:**

> this is based off the december 19, 2018 liveshow where dan and phil announced the end of pinof and a gaming channel hiatus!

the phandom had many ways of breaking up the chapters of dan and phil’s lives together. many split them up by which apartment they were living in at the time. others chose to separate the eras by behavior, using a specific video to mark each new beginning. some organized by openness, some organized by happiness, and some organized even by appearance. the boys themselves had their own methods.

it was back in 2011 when they first moved in together that they started to talk about their future together. they’d been watching their channels grow for years and each of them began to see a real future in youtube, especially together. they mutually saw another type of future together, but they were young, in love, and scared to think too far ahead. in youtube, however, they weren’t afraid to talk about their dreams, and those went years in advance.

“what do you think, ten of them?” dan asked phil in reference to the video that began it all.

“ten is a good number. could you imagine making it that far?”

“we’ll have to see. ten it is.”

phil remembered the conversation clearly. back then, ten pinofs seemed impossible; it was light years away to him. now, it had crept up and eventually passed, and they were right all those years ago; ten was a good number. it didn’t seem like them anymore. but everyone else loved it, and having to end it placed a knot in his stomach.

they made many plans that day, but the world wasn’t kind to long-term plans. most of them fell foul to the harsh algorithm of a single youtube glitch that set everything back for a year and developed a chapter phil liked to call the dark ages. as the sun came out at the end, many of their ideas for the future had been burned to the ground.

as time went on, they rebuilt their future in a better fashion than either of them could have ever imagined from the beginning. they began to enjoy the privilege they had to have millions of people at their disposal and played around a bit. suddenly it became a bit easier to discuss every possible future they could have, whether it be business, personal, or somewhere tied in between.

as the next years progressed, their plans stayed intact. a radio show, two tours, two books, an app, and a board game were all behind them. they had created a whole new empire in a gaming channel that had brought them joy for four years. they’d passed through two planned chapters of behavior, and it finally drew time for part one to end.

there were plenty of chapters of time they’d passed through, but part one was a whole new battle to fight. in all honesty, some of their plans were jokes; they’d never expected to perfectly plan out anything that far in advance. they didn’t expect to reach the end of part one with part two still intact, but there they were, ready to end the entire era beginning the day they first met and enter into the next one.

well, dan was ready. phil wasn’t quite sure.

“phil! our liveshow starts in fifteen minutes! are you almost ready?” phil heard him, but he chose to ignore him. it was only a few seconds later when he heard the footsteps into their room, where phil had set up camp on his laptop for the day to edit dilmas. “phil, come on!”

“dan,” he said, shutting his laptop and looking up. “i don’t think i am ready.”

“what do you mean?” dan asked, his tone changing from annoyance to concern as he sat down beside phil on the bed.

“i mean, i’m ready for a liveshow. i’m ready to hang out on a pile of pine needles and talk about the crazy last week and a half of our lives. i just don’t know if i’m ready to tell them.”

“phil…” dan trailed off. “we’ve been planning this for years. we’ve already executed all of it. all that’s left is to say the words.”

“but those words are terrifying! it’s one thing to talk to a camera; it’s another thing to talk to a camera with instant disappointment.”

“they’re not going to be disappointed,” dan said with an eye roll.

“yes, dan, they are.” phil bit his lip to choke back tears; he didn’t understand why the situation was making him so emotional, but he did know that he had to go live in ten minutes, and tears weren’t the best addition to a liveshow he already knew would be messy.

“okay, you’re probably right. but only for a little while. i guarantee you if you go on tumblr afterwards you’ll see a little bit of sadness, but mostly excitement. you saw the responses on the tour survey; they want us to give them what we want now.”

“i guess you’re right, but these are big changes, dan. i never told you this, but i’ve always dreaded this one. i know it’s important, but, dan, this is part two.”

dan smiled, memories flooding back to him that phil had never forgotten. “part two: the era of us. that never did really suit you, did it?”

“what do you mean?”

“you know, phil, that’s something i’ve always admired about you.” phil raised an eyebrow. “ever since that first pinof, everything you’ve done has catered to an audience. ever since you truly realized how much you mean to them, every video you’ve put out, every picture you’ve released, and every tweet you’ve posted has been for them. every single little thing you do is to make a stranger’s day a little bit better. and i admire you for that. hell, i couldn’t do it.”

“dan, you do tons of things for our audience!”

“yes, but not everything. i’ve taken a break from youtube this year because i needed to focus on myself. you’ve never taken any breaks; you’ve just kept going and going, and you haven’t once worried about it breaking you, and that’s admirable. stupid, but admirable.”

“hey!”

“phil, we both know you’ve been overworking yourself lately.” dan gritted his teeth as his voice grew louder. “for fuck’s sake, a couple weeks ago you got so stressed your body shut down! you can’t keep doing this to yourself! neither of us knew when we planned this out what 2018 would be like, but damn were we right about the timing of these changes. hell, we didn’t even mean to end pinof and change the gaming channel at the same time; it just happened, and it’s a damn good thing it did. this is the exact time that we, and especially you, need to take a break and cater to ourselves for once. damnit phil, you need part two a hell of a lot more than you’d like to admit.”

phil sighed, looking down at the stickers on his laptop. it was upside down, but his entire life was put in front of him on a platter. youtube, instagram, tumblr, his gaming channel icon--he’d put everything into his online persona, and dan was right. it needed to stop before it went too far.

dan was right, but change was still terrifying.

“what if they don’t like us anymore? what if they don’t like part two me?”

dan put his hand on phil’s shoulder and drew his gaze, staring into his puppy dog eyes. “you’ve catered to an audience since the first pinof. but there were three years before that when you put out your own youtube content. you posted what you wanted, and it was a true representation of who you are and how incredible your creative mind truly is. you didn’t post those videos for anyone but yourself. and you know what happened in those first three years?”

“what?”

“i fell in love with you.”

“you’re right,” phil said, the words pouring involuntarily out of his mouth. “thank you, dan. i needed that,” he said, falling to the side and into dan’s arms. they laid in silence for a moment before phil finally turned his head up to dan’s. “are you sure everything’s going to be alright?”

“positive,” dan said, running his fingers through phil’s hair in hopes to calm him. “just think about what’ll happen after we get through this one liveshow. think ahead, say, a year. part two is in full effect. we’ve finally gotten out of this tiny apartment and moved into our ‘forever home’, as they like to call it. we’ve adopted a dog, and we’re doing our yearly mukbang. it’s been ten years. do you remember what happens after ten years?” phil nodded silently. “that glass closet is shattered, and we can finally do everything we’ve ever wanted to do.”

“that one’s pretty scary too,” phil piped in.

“i have to agree with you there,” dan chuckled nervously. “change is scary. but some changes,” he paused to look down at phil. “are worth it.”

phil moved his head upwards to connect his lips with dan. it was an awkward position, but somehow it seemed to fit.

“you and me, bub,” dan said when they separated. “we can get through anything.”

dan glanced at their bedside clock and back at phil. “five minutes. are you ready?”

phil smiled at him, his usual livelihood breathing back into him as if dan had given him cpr. “yeah, i think i am.”

“but i’m scared of change!” dan read from the chat. “change is terrifying,” he said, as phil rambled on, clearly either back to his normal, cheerful self or deeply rooted in the online persona dan wanted so dearly to get rid of.

“but it’s good.”


End file.
